'Use only as directed'

[machfront]

I believe I have not been and am not interested in playing Dungeons & Dragons.
What I mean is, I simply cannot play D&D as D&D the game any longer.

What I've come to see is that really I use it (or rather, S&W of late) as little more than a character class and combat engine.
If you'll note, the overwhelming majority of very rules-lite games give rules for character creation and conflict resolution and that's pretty much it.
After years of T&T, I missed silly things like all those different dice, but I also missed having a bit more structure and some things set out or 'pre-figured' as it were.
But now... I'm just not interested at all in either playing or running a game of How Many Torches Do We Have Left? or that breathlessly exciting rpg, 120' Per Turn.

Being a rules-lite guy, I suppose I get the same enjoyment from simply reading B/X that rules-heavy fans must get out of reading the dense and Byzantine texts of their favorite games. But using even B/X at the table nowadays? Ha. No thanks.

I yet hold to the same 'wild and wooly' approach that is part and parcel to T&T. I also hold (with any game now) to Ken St. Andre's view of his game. He once stated:
"my conception of the T&T world was based on The Lord of The Rings as it would have been done by Marvel Comics in 1974 with Conan, Elric, the Gray Mouser and a host of badguys thrown in.".
I'm not just talking about campaigns and overall flavor, but as per his description I mean the feel and 'academics' at the table.
Though I'm often fascinated by minutia and the manner in which some folks at many forums and blogs are able to seemingly effortlessly track and/or bring to bear probabilities and the 'unseen' from simple dice mechanics, but there's no way I could ever or wish to consider such at my own table.

I'm far beyond the days of yore when I shrugged off AD&D because, among other things, the spell descriptions being too long to even read without falling asleep and am now into the realm of "Boy, even these three short sentences in S&W Complete spell descriptions make me a bit tired."

I want fun. I want it to be more like those old DC and Marvel 70s s&s comics. I want it to be Hawk the Slayer. No one at my table, and no one I've played with in the past...ever...has ever been keen on tracking precisely how long it's been since the party rested or if the elf has shot exactly 13 arrows so far. I DON'T care that in really, really, real, REAL life a guy with a rapier, wearing naught but a poofy shirt and jerkin couldn't stand up to some haughty, stained lurch in plate armor. In the written and filmed fiction he certainly can and that's all that matters. Because only fun matters. I'm not here to freakin' simulate the High Middle Ages. If I wanted that sort of unfun I'd use Fantasy Wargaming. Ugh.
(If the aforementioned black tome is not in your library, I recommend it for sick laughs.)

Odd that I should still semi-obsess over wanting an iteration of D&D close enough to my vision so as not to need any house rules or at least just one or two quick plug-ins.
With so very many editions and clones and semi-clones and the rest, I feel like I shouldn't have to be still sitting here having to beef up the lowly constantly-shafted thief and giving the fighter abilities that make him less boring and on and on and on...
I mean, if I don't care...why in the world do I care?

I hope fussing is worthy of being a forum thread-starter since it seems that's all I may be doing here. I admire so many for their: "Is it precisely thus?", but I'm just over there saying "Man, it's all there in the roll/hit dice/save/your character’s background, so whatever." But in the hardware I want something that gives me enough so I can be lazy and not too much so that I have to ignore great swathes of rules that people who just want to have fun pretending to be a slightly crazed spell-slinger wouldn't need to facilitate such.

Times like this I wonder why I use RISUS only for stuff that isn't D&D...

[deathanddrek]

The new hotness at the moment is Fate and Dungeon World. (Not so much my thing, but truth be told I've never played them.) Do their story-centric mechanics appeal to you more? Or are you talking along other lines?

[machfront]

Nah. Narrative interaction isn't really my thing (not as a mechanic anyway). No, I actually like D&D, but I'm just well and truly over playing D&D as D&D is prescribed. I fully realize that folks doing so many years hence may be part of what spawned so many perceived issues with the game, leading to fixes that 'fixed' things that were meant to be just as they were. That is to say folks opining that their characters couldn't last past a single combat while fully admitting to failing to hire men-at-arms,...things like that.
While fully aware of such things, I still just and only wish to use D&D as I seem to have been actually using it: a very rough semi-structure of classes, combat, monsters and spells. Really nothing more. I'm entirely happy completely ignoring encumbrance, time, movement and other such book-work.

I'm not looking for something new. I'm really just stating that I simply cannot aspire to 'use only as directed'.

[derv]

I find that I go through phases. Generally, I agree with your sentiment and prefer a light approach. But, I think it's in the nature of most gamers to "tack on" and tinker with a rule set. With OD&D, you also have people analyzing the original intent of the authors. That's why we have discussions on alternative encumbrance methods, hit location options, or how many pixies fit in a standard brass inkwell, etc. One of the first rule sets that interested me when I came back to gaming was Microlite74. It still appeals to me and now Randalls been working on Microlite81. That might be worth looking into.

[smokestackjones]

Machfront, I applaud your thoughts and feel the same way. As a relatively new convert to T&T, I'd say just stick with that. Funny dice be d**ned.

-SJ

[coffee]

And the real beauty of D&D, to me, is that you can totally drop whatever rules you don't like. Don't use encumbrance? Drop it! In my decades of gaming experience, I don't recall any particular DM dwelling on encumbrance at all, except occasionally when we have way too much treasure to haul off (and that's what bags of holding are for...)

I have been in 'count the torches' kind of games, and while some like them it's not necessary that everyone like them. Do what you want to have fun with your game.

And as far as using it as directed, the best way to do so is found on p. 36 of tU&WA: "...decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way!"

In other words, those of Tim Kask, "Well, that's how it works in MY world!"

[Deleted]

* tiny violin *

A lot of words for waah, waah, waah.

[grubman]

I know what you mean (although, as my earlier thread indicates, I do enjoy resource management when it is part of the feel of a dungeon crawl). I have very little patience for tomes of rules...yet, I do like to have a very solid framework as a core, because I'm not a huge fan of house ruling (I play most games "by the book", with various hand waves or on the spot decisions). I'm a meat and potatoes guy, so all these "new" old school games that incorporate artsy mechanics or ideas that seem simple on paper, but become more "complex" in play, just don't scratch my itch. I like my rules straight forward and simple.

T&T was my game of choice for many years, and I still try to play it at least once a year. I wouldn't use it for extended play now because...I just get sort of tired of some things being too simple (not handling obvious situations well) while others are a bit complex (like missile fire).

My "problem" is, like you, I'm sort of obsessed with D&D. It was the first game I played, and even though I've tried to deviate over my 33 years of gaming, I always seem to need to come back. The problem is when I look at a new game for fantasy, I always end up looking for something that does "my D&D"...and they just don't. My D&D is B/X with some of the trimmings cut off (Delving Deeper seems to come close).

I don't know, early D&D is fun, balanced (makes a DMs job easy), and manages to cover all the rules in the simplest way imaginable. All the games that came after try to do things "different" often to the point of making things more complicated where complications aren't needed. Obviously that appeals to some people...not me.

[jakdethe]

To me that is the beauty of Swords & Wizardry, and the "Old School Primer". I was never around in the 70's or 80's to play D&D, so I don't know how OD&D or B/X, or AD&D was actually played. What I do know is there are games like S&W and people saying "Hey you can play D&D like this, with few rules, and lots of imagination". I know I've never cared about how many feet an elf can move in a 10 minute turn, even if it is integral to how OD&D was actually played. I do care about whether that elf hit an orc in combat, or whether he gets to cast a magical spell that day; and OD&D handles those aspects the best out of any RPG I've played.

[inkmeister]

Gronan: You respond to an earnest, thoughtful post with nothing but an insult. I think the only reason you consistently get away with insulting and otherwise empty posts like the one above is that you happen to have had the privilege of playing with Gygax and Arneson (which, fascinating as that *could* be, in my mind does not even slightly excuse your immature posting). I personally hope that such posts as yours do not lead to this becoming another RPGSite, where such pointlessness is the norm.

MachFront: I really enjoyed your post and largely agree with everything you said. I think a number of folks here (Geoffrey really stands out in my mind) look at it basically the same way; D&D at the minimum is roughly AC, hit dice, to hit, saving throws. You could probably even tweak that basic core and still have something that a lot of us here would recognize as basically D&D.

That said, I am fascinated by the original play style, with torch counting and movement tracking. I think that's a really cool style, but I'm not interested in just one way. I like to think of the OSR as a buffet of styles. I think even in the 70's a lot of people deviated very heavily from the meticulous style of play you mentioned.

For the most part, my personal taste has me throwing out most of the rules. Gronan unproductively usually chimes in to tell people who are interested in making changes or dropping rules "it's not D&D anymore" - who cares? Even in the days when the game was invented it wasn't "D&D" - it was just a game some guys created and played in line with their own tastes. That is the true spirit of old school playing. So I like to drop clerics, change the magic system, omit most of the setting assumptions, drop ability scores, sometimes do XP free-form, often leave out the meticulous stuff you mention (I just don't ref enough to be skilled at tracking a lot of stuff - I plainly forget a lot of the time).

So I say more power to you. I hope that you stick around and post, because I enjoy what you have to say (and have for years). I think OD&D is a wide enough thing to accommodate all sorts of play styles.

If I weren't lazy, I'd probably try to distill what I think is core to D&D down to about 10 pages or less.

[geoffrey]

Yeah, all you really need is the 34-page Men & Magic book. I've played D&D games using no other published source.

You might also take a look at Sword & Magic by Gabor Lux (who posts as Melan). That version of D&D is a mere 20 pages long. Almost all of the spell descriptions are 1 line long, a few are 2 lines long, and a single spell is a whopping 3 lines long. I've been tempted to switch over to S&M (heh). Check-out the PC possibilities:

Races (all humans):
Terrans
Amazons
Cavemen
Etunians
Imperials
Northmen

Classes:
Fighters
Archers
Amazons
Sailors
Barbarians
Clerics
Thieves
Magic-users
Illusionists

The rules for combat are a blessedly short 2 pages.

[machfront]

Oct 27, 2013 6:15:27 GMT -6 derv said:

I find that I go through phases. Generally, I agree with your sentiment and prefer a light approach. But, I think it's in the nature of most gamers to "tack on" and tinker with a rule set.

Yes. I enjoy reading about and tossing around house rules ideas, but it's my preference to boil them down to quite literally two or three rules bits. I admire those that do and can but I certainly can't imagine having a great pile of house rules. Were I that patient I guess I'd likely write my own game from scratch.

Oct 27, 2013 6:15:27 GMT -6 derv said:

With OD&D, you also have people analyzing the original intent of the authors. That's why we have discussions on alternative encumbrance methods, hit location options, or how many pixies fit in a standard brass inkwell, etc.

Yes again. I enjoy reading those discussions, though I admit to feeling in over my head in the rare occasions I weigh in. I'm lucky to be able to have a handle on a +1 here and there. Ha ha!

Oct 27, 2013 8:13:35 GMT -6 smokestackjones said:

Machfront, I applaud your thoughts and feel the same way. As a relatively new convert to T&T, I'd say just stick with that. Funny dice be d**ned.

Heh. Well, I spent something like four years using T&T nigh exclusively and in an extended campaign no less. I enjoy pimping the game and I enjoyed helping to erase some folks (understandable) misconceptions about the game and I certainly enjoyed it's attitude and very loose feel. But, I must admit that four years of throwing and counting up so many d6s was taxing. By the end, I'd cut back to the UK 1st ed. (which is what the US Fourth Edition is based on) and even those lower numbers of dice weren't enough to help. It may sound very un-GM but I was also tired of being responsible for coming up with monsters and dealing with combat even more abstract than the lightest of D&D, though Combat SRs are something I can't let go of and so I allow for such stunts in D&D. I had even begun to consider a on-the-fly magic system based on a RISUS magic system I'd come across. It was then I passed over to RISUS and then almost immediately back to D&D.
I produce electronic music (all 'in the box' on computer) and I do the same with my many synthesizers and samplers. There are those few very basic and simple instruments I always come back to again and again.

Oct 27, 2013 8:24:20 GMT -6 coffee said:

And the real beauty of D&D, to me, is that you can totally drop whatever rules you don't like. Don't use encumbrance? Drop it! In my decades of gaming experience, I don't recall any particular DM dwelling on encumbrance at all, except occasionally when we have way too much treasure to haul off (and that's what bags of holding are for...)

I'm glad OD&D and the like are so forgiving in that regard, which is part of why I prefer them. Though ignoring some elements might cause undesired ripple effects it's still incredibly simple to patch. (I suppose I mean something on the order of having no cleric and using some sort of 'binding wounds' rule. That sort of thing.)

Oct 27, 2013 9:24:20 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

* tiny violin *

A lot of words for waah, waah, waah.

Perhaps it is far too wordy for what may seem belly-aching, but I had a point in there somewhere. That I fully realize that D&D is a game and that that game has an intended structure and style, but that I simply cannot play in that manner. It's nothing profound. I simply realized that I'm using D&D as an outline for a game even simpler than it already is.
I'd have actually enjoyed input from you. I think it's a pity that you just said "too bad" to someone who wasn't even saying "woe is me". :/

Oct 27, 2013 9:25:11 GMT -6 grubman said:

I know what you mean (although, as my earlier thread indicates, I do enjoy resource management when it is part of the feel of a dungeon crawl). I have very little patience for tomes of rules...yet, I do like to have a very solid framework as a core, because I'm not a huge fan of house ruling (I play most games "by the book", with various hand waves or on the spot decisions). I'm a meat and potatoes guy, so all these "new" old school games that incorporate artsy mechanics or ideas that seem simple on paper, but become more "complex" in play, just don't scratch my itch. I like my rules straight forward and simple.

I can see the (and have on occasion) enjoyment in that aspect, but despite the game being the game, I find that I just want it to play out like a Saturday Morning Cartoon version of Paul Verhoven's Flesh & Blood. And as I alluded to, assuming that a PC is fighting more defensively and granting a +2 to AC and -1 to hit and -1 to damage is about as crunchy and complex as I care to get.

Oct 27, 2013 9:25:11 GMT -6 grubman said:

My "problem" is, like you, I'm sort of obsessed with D&D. It was the first game I played, and even though I've tried to deviate over my 33 years of gaming, I always seem to need to come back. The problem is when I look at a new game for fantasy, I always end up looking for something that does "my D&D"...and they just don't. My D&D is B/X with some of the trimmings cut off (Delving Deeper seems to come close).

Same here. I'm attracted to it. I'm so often thinking, no matter how different the other game may be, "But I can already do that/could simply do ____ with D&D and have the same result and it wouldn't take so long."
I'm uncertain if it's preference or happy familiarity. I'm fine with whichever it may be (though likely both).

Oct 27, 2013 11:03:29 GMT -6 jakdethe said:

To me that is the beauty of Swords & Wizardry, and the "Old School Primer". I was never around in the 70's or 80's to play D&D, so I don't know how OD&D or B/X, or AD&D was actually played. What I do know is there are games like S&W and people saying "Hey you can play D&D like this, with few rules, and lots of imagination". I know I've never cared about how many feet an elf can move in a 10 minute turn, even if it is integral to how OD&D was actually played. I do care about whether that elf hit an orc in combat, or whether he gets to cast a magical spell that day; and OD&D handles those aspects the best out of any RPG I've played.

I'm part of what I assume is the upper age of the second generation at 39. I began at age 12 in fall of '86. I'm not sure how others played, but we 7th graders at lunch were playing every bit as loose and care-free as I like to now. I have a fondness to both Holmes and B/X because, despite beginning in the mid-80s, those were the first rule books I encountered and owned (respectively). But it's not nostalgia because, to paraphrase Philotomy, I'm enjoying it RIGHT NOW. It is partly nostalgia when the big, dumb smile is on my face when I flip through and read Holmes and B/X however.

Oct 27, 2013 11:37:46 GMT -6 inkmeister said:

I think a number of folks here (Geoffrey really stands out in my mind) look at it basically the same way; D&D at the minimum is roughly AC, hit dice, to hit, saving throws. You could probably even tweak that basic core and still have something that a lot of us here would recognize as basically D&D.

Being comfortable as a minimalist, I guess that's why very simple things like Geoffrey's suggestion years ago that Holmes couple be a self-contained game just as it is, especially for something on the order of The Hobbit, sort of blew my mind and excited me. Or maybe it makes me a simpleton. But whatever.

Oct 27, 2013 11:37:46 GMT -6 inkmeister said:

That said, I am fascinated by the original play style, with torch counting and movement tracking. I think that's a really cool style, but I'm not interested in just one way.

Like I said I'm fascinated by reading about it and even enjoy going over, for example, the very structured encounter or combat order for B/X, but I just find I can't use it at the table. Maybe I'm just too irresponsible. Like the young teen who is taking guitar lessons and simply says "Screw this. I wanna rock!"

Oct 27, 2013 11:37:46 GMT -6 inkmeister said:

Gronan unproductively usually chimes in to tell people who are interested in making changes or dropping rules "it's not D&D anymore" - who cares?

I'm not so sure. He's often seemed to say essentially: 'do what you want, do whatever's fun, it's your game and that is D&D'. *shrug*

Oct 27, 2013 11:37:46 GMT -6 inkmeister said:

I just don't ref enough to be skilled at tracking a lot of stuff - I plainly forget a lot of the time).

Oh, hell. Same here. I tried turn trackers and other odds and ends on different papers and on the screen, etc. But then I thought: "Ya know. I'm done with homework. I want to go outside and play in the woods.", so I simply can't bother with those things any longer.

Oct 27, 2013 11:37:46 GMT -6 inkmeister said:

If I weren't lazy, I'd probably try to distill what I think is core to D&D down to about 10 pages or less.

Ha ha! I couldn't even write out my own fantasy flavor of RISUS a couple of years ago. It would have likely been about three pages and I still couldn't commit to it.

[Deleted]

An experiment: Put aside your rulebooks and play D&D from what you can remember. The details you generally remember are the stuff you used the most.

[gronkthebold]

Oct 27, 2013 8:24:20 GMT -6 coffee said:

And the real beauty of D&D, to me, is that you can totally drop whatever rules you don't like. Don't use encumbrance? Drop it! In my decades of gaming experience, I don't recall any particular DM dwelling on encumbrance at all, except occasionally when we have way too much treasure to haul off (and that's what bags of holding are for...)

I have been in 'count the torches' kind of games, and while some like them it's not necessary that everyone like them. Do what you want to have fun with your game.

And as far as using it as directed, the best way to do so is found on p. 36 of tU&WA: "...decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way!"

In other words, those of Tim Kask, "Well, that's how it works in MY world!"

Hear hear! I couldn't have said it better myself.

[Deleted]

Oct 27, 2013 15:31:22 GMT -6 machfront said:

Perhaps it is far too wordy for what may seem belly-aching, but I had a point in there somewhere. That I fully realize that D&D is a game and that that game has an intended structure and style, but that I simply cannot play in that manner. It's nothing profound. I simply realized that I'm using D&D as an outline for a game even simpler than it already is.
I'd have actually enjoyed input from you.

A different question will get a different answer. Your first post, quite honestly, looked like a thousand words of "This is why D&D is wrong and bad."

I've also played TFT and found it not simpler at all, but ymmv. If you really think OD&D is too complicated, then try Dungeon World. It's a fun enough game and dead simple.

[machfront]

Oct 27, 2013 18:53:19 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Your first post, quite honestly, looked like a thousand words of "This is why D&D is wrong and bad."

Oh, no. Not at all.
I can see how you mistook the post.
I love D&D. I dig old-school D&D just as it is. But, I'm simply happy using very little of it in play besides characters and conflict, really.

Oct 27, 2013 18:53:19 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

I've also played TFT and found it not simpler at all, but ymmv. If you really think OD&D is too complicated, then try Dungeon World. It's a fun enough game and dead simple.

Not TFT, Tunnels & Trolls.
I certainly don't find OD&D complicated, but I do have a low threshold for crunch and fiddly bits for sure. Again, I'm quite happy with many an older iteration of D&D. I was simply giving voice to my realization that I do not and am happy to not play with every switch 'turned on' even with a game as lite as OD&D.

[machfront]

Oct 27, 2013 15:33:49 GMT -6 @relic said:

An experiment: Put aside your rulebooks and play D&D from what you can remember. The details you generally remember are the stuff you used the most.

Goodness. With my mind?

Can I have a homemade screen with stuff from the Ready Ref Sheets?

[kent]

My model for how to use D&D depends completely on the degree of experience the players have with the game.

The idea is to be clinical with probabilities when the players are beginning, using the guts of the AD&D machinery complemented with AD&D style houserules specifically tailored to illustrating players' professions. This grounds the players' expectations of what they can achieve in the world. D&D is a game that scales well to levels 7th to 9th, in the sense that players and their characters interests change meaningfully in proportion with power. Couple this with our natural inclination to be bored by repetition leads me to shed rules as the players become familiar with them and learn instead to accept my judgements in the place of dice rolling for what become to seem mundane matters. So by 7th - 9th level there is little or nothing in the way of book rules left in the game but there is no mistaking from what the edifice has been constructed.

[Deleted]

Oct 27, 2013 19:40:09 GMT -6 machfront said:

I certainly don't find OD&D complicated, but I do have a low threshold for crunch and fiddly bits for sure. Again, I'm quite happy with many an older iteration of D&D. I was simply giving voice to my realization that I do not and am happy to not play with every switch 'turned on' even with a game as lite as OD&D.

Ah. I'm afraid I didn't get that impression.

ON the other hand, I'm running about 5 hours of sleep per day so my reading comprehension ain't what it oughter be. I make sure my players have torches &c, but frankly I don't tick off torch-burning-time myself. 'Course, most of my players use lanterns... more expensive, but if you throw it it's oil and fire combined.

But Dungeon World is a fun game.

[bexley]

Oct 27, 2013 18:53:19 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

I've also played TFT and found it not simpler at all, but ymmv. If you really think OD&D is too complicated, then try Dungeon World. It's a fun enough game and dead simple.

Better yet, World of Dungeons which is Dungeon World stripped down to 2 pages. It is great for minimalist and encounter based world-building too. Stat up a bunch of Wilderlands tables and you're good to go with everything adjudicated from a simple 2d6 roll.

[kesher]

Oct 27, 2013 15:33:49 GMT -6 @relic said:

An experiment: Put aside your rulebooks and play D&D from what you can remember. The details you generally remember are the stuff you used the most.

You know, that's a freaking great idea.

[peterlind]

I have a couple of humble suggestions, one for the GM and one for the players. For the GM, just pick your basic ruleset (such as OD&D whitebox only, OD&D + Greyhawk only, OD&D + all supplements and SR, or OD&D & your own set of house rules) and just inform the players that this is IT. All other classes/races must be approved by the GM. All rules outside of OD&D would be optional, and you have plenty of rules to draw from for inspiration (Holmes, B/X, BECMI/RC &AD&D). Make sure you have your basic setting and starting adventure ready and then you are good to go. In my experience, with sufficient preparation, a new game can be started within a half hour, including character generation. Then just run it, and make GM rulings on the fly as needed.

For the players, learn to think "outside of the box" (i.e. your character sheet). What is contained in the character sheet is just a starting point for character growth and development. IMO, you don't really need to have all of those neat-sounding feats and powers from later editions. More rules will just add to the complications and make it harder for the GM to prepare and run games. Instead, just trust that your GM is not out to get you. You can still have your character develop over time, as the campaign progresses, by working with your GM. If there is a specific area in which you would like to develop your character, then just communicate that to the GM. The GM will then be more than happy to work this into the game because he or she will be glad to have your participation and your interest.

Just some thoughts .. .

[Falconer]

I reread my copy of Swords & Six-Siders yesterday, and it reminded me of this thread, especially the desire for short spell descriptions.

[inkmeister]

I like the idea of formulating your own D&D game from memory. You could use whatever references you want - Ready Ref, etc. That's basically what I do. I feel that the basic engine of D&D is simple enough to keep in one's mind. When problems come up, the group can talk it out and figure out a method to handle the situation. That becomes the new rule. IF the rule is forgotten, then it wasn't a good or useful rule, and it can be dropped. In practice, this is what every group I've ever played with does (except me; I've played as faithfully as I possibly can to the rules in the past, mostly as an experiment). Whether the game is 3e or 4e or 2e or some other RPG, every group I've gamed with ignores most of the rules and just does what they want to do (which often bothers me, because I had to spend an hour creating a character in a complex system just to have most of the stuff ignored anyway - ARGH!!!) In a game like OD&D or B/X, it's fine. So long as everyone has a sense of how things are going to go down and don't feel like they were misled, it's great.

I don't think most people, then or now, use encumbrance or serious time keeping. A lot of folks even on this forum don't track XP by the book. I know I was surprised at how many people free-form the XP system and level ups in the old school realm.

At the end of the day, most people I've known cannot be bothered to read the rules that closely and actually adhere to them faithfully. Even B/X is a bit complicated if you keep all the options turned on. Those options can be really cool if that's the game you want, but the game can be really cool ignoring all that stuff, too. For my part, I often find D&D as Gygax and co. played it to be way too restrictive of my own vision. I think a lot of people even on these boards feel that way.

Once again, I value your original post here, Machfront. I like to see the variety of gaming styles people come up with around classic and OD&D. I like it when people like RedBaron say that megadungeons reek of boring repetition, and people like Fin say they prefer low lethality D&D with characters starting at level 3 or 4, or when Geoffrey talks about throwing out 99% of the rules to create his cool games devoid elves and dwarves, and so forth. I also like hearing Gronan talk about his McDonalds on level 6 of his dungeon, and seeing Grodog demonstrate his incredibly baroque (and beautiful) mega-dungeon levels. And Benoist going on about his mega-dungeon campaign style (complete with awesome maps). So many cool things going on, and a great deal of variety. I wish I could play with most of the people here, sampling all the different styles that people have come up with.

[Deleted]

Oct 28, 2013 16:11:45 GMT -6 inkmeister said:

I don't think most people, then or now, use encumbrance or serious time keeping. A lot of folks even on this forum don't track XP by the book.

I used them, but your guess is as good as mine as to how many did not. I never found any of those issues: encumbrance, movement/time, or XP that difficult to track. Or inventory. (shrug) Whatever works.

[Falconer]

To me, the core game of Dungeons & Dragons is explained in Vol. III: The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, pp. 3-14 (“The Underworld” section), plus the little bit at the end, pp. 35-6 (“Healing Wounds” + “Time”). Especially pp. 8-9 (“The Move/Turn in the Underworld”).

One could argue that wilderness adventures, village/city adventures, naval adventures, combat for combat’s sake, character building, stronghold/army building, storytelling, etc. are all more-or-less equally important parts of Dungeons & Dragons. To me, they are important, but as activities they are peripheral. The Underworld is the thing that blew the world’s mind.

Granted, once you grasp the Underworld concept, you can jettison any and all rules related to it, but it’s not like there really are that many (“a roll of 1 or 2 on a six-sided die” seems to have been quite the universal mechanic). The point of the rules is to relay the game concept in the first place, which apparently succeeded admirably, judging by the explosion of the game’s popularity (and despite OD&D being supposedly “confusing”).

As for stuff like spell descriptions being too long, I dunno, that really doesn’t bother me. Surely for a world to feel immersive and persistent, there need to be details in some in-world things like spellbooks. I even like the spell components from AD&D, even though I don’t make the players find/buy/track them — it’s just flavor. I “eyeball” movement and time passage and radii. I “handwaive” encumbrance. But I like having the guidelines in the book. They’re there if I want them. They don’t really seem like rules weight to me.

[machfront]

Oct 28, 2013 20:13:31 GMT -6 @dubeers said:

I never found any of those issues: encumbrance, movement/time, or XP that difficult to track. Or inventory. (shrug) Whatever works.

I find it difficult to remember to place a check mark in my head when I'm busy having fun. Plus it's boring. It's so dreadfully, awfully fun-sucking.
Well, I've never really had a hard time with encumbrance...I just don't care. XP is no biggie. It's movement and time as well as (specifically in B/X for example) the prescribed stricture of exactly what happens in a turn and in what order, etc.

[Deleted]

Oct 29, 2013 20:20:18 GMT -6 machfront said:

I find it difficult to remember to place a check mark in my head when I'm busy having fun. Plus it's boring. It's so dreadfully, awfully fun-sucking.

I meant no offense. Apologies.

[machfront]

Oct 28, 2013 21:56:13 GMT -6 Falconer said:

One could argue that wilderness adventures, village/city adventures, naval adventures, combat for combat’s sake, character building, stronghold/army building, storytelling, etc. are all more-or-less equally important parts of Dungeons & Dragons. To me, they are important, but as activities they are peripheral.

Whereas the importance is more or less reversed for me. Myself and everyone I've ever played with far prefers wilderness and city.

Oct 28, 2013 21:56:13 GMT -6 Falconer said:

The point of the rules is to relay the game concept in the first place, which apparently succeeded admirably, judging by the explosion of the game’s popularity (and despite OD&D being supposedly “confusing”).

Hard to tell if it was confusing or not since it seems the majority of folks had it explained to them from the (seeming) few that had a grasp of it. I can't speak to this even for myself since OD&D was the last D&D I ever encountered (first reading it about five years ago). I will say that I find it a major pain in the patookus to find some stuff in the booklets.

Oct 28, 2013 21:56:13 GMT -6 Falconer said:

As for stuff like spell descriptions being too long, I dunno, that really doesn’t bother me. Surely for a world to feel immersive and persistent, there need to be details in some in-world things like spellbooks. I even like the spell components from AD&D, even though I don’t make the players find/buy/track them — it’s just flavor. I “eyeball” movement and time passage and radii. I “handwaive” encumbrance. But I like having the guidelines in the book. They’re there if I want them. They don’t really seem like rules weight to me.

Oh, I like to have the guidelines as well. If not, I really would use something like RISUS for all my gaming. It was lack of or at least missing the presence of, such guidelines in T&T that brought me back to D&D.
I don't find spell descriptions too long in anything but AD&D, but my patience grows short even for B/X's spells.

I mean (to put it in perspective), I just spent four years running an extended campaign with Tunnels & Trolls with nothing but a map made by someone else (the Trollworld map from the T&T computer game Crusaders of Khazan), the T&T rulebook itself and literally three pages with scratched notes. That's all I used. For four long years. After four long years, that's all I had to show for it. I don't use published adventures and I don't stat out NPCs or anything. I don't draw maps. I started it all with the idea that the cosmos went insane, coupled with scanning over a few things in Citybook I and staring for a while at the Trollworld map. That was the whole of my "campaign prep".
The spell description for the spell Knock, Knock in T&T opens locked doors usually. How do I know that? Because that's the whole of the spell description. "Opens locked doors (usually).". That's it. lol Now I'm a-ok with more guidelines than that, but not much more. Heck it already tells me everything I need to know anyway to be honest. But, no, I certainly don't find the spells in OD&D to be too long.

[machfront]

Oct 29, 2013 20:27:39 GMT -6 @dubeers said:

Oct 29, 2013 20:20:18 GMT -6 machfront said:

I find it difficult to remember to place a check mark in my head when I'm busy having fun. Plus it's boring. It's so dreadfully, awfully fun-sucking.

I meant no offense. Apologies.

No offense in the slightest little bit. I was only offering my perspective.